Iran - Israel/US War: Israel-US declare war on Iran, Iran responds

[Ali_Baba]

Per Brandon J. Weichert ( the Senior National Security Editor at 19FortyFive.com) post US-Israel/ Iran war where the US will look to retreat from the region, there will be 5 major powers in the greater middle east calling the shots

SA, Iran, Pak, Egypt & Turkey

The Israelis are screwed

And - "no India" .... Just saying.

( infact India is no where right now, not in East Asia or West Asia .. )

 

[925boy]

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Significant American concession to Iran

This means less Iranian oil for China, which is good, because China took advantage of Iran a bit by buying a ton of its sanctioned oil at unfair prices.

 

[HAIDER]

This means less Iranian oil for China, which is good, because China took advantage of Iran a bit by buying a ton of its sanctioned oil at unfair prices.

Both China and India.

 

[PakistanLVR]

It was a domestic political need immediately after the revolution; an external threat legitimizes the rule. India does it well. Then it found legs of its own; the US reaction to it, in no small part due to the interests of the Israelis and the Arabs, turned it into a feedback loop.

Add to that the Muslim religious circles' ridiculous insistence on fighting it out of our current situations. If you were to elect/select a religious party in Pakistan, the same will happen.



Left the Kashmiris high and dry though, despite the long history of support Pakistan provided them. Then there's the 90s between them and the Saudis across the region, including Pakistan. The Iranians did and continue to do what they need to for their own interests. Muslim interests have nothing to do with it. Pakistanis should take a page from them.

It’s exactly a Muslim issue but also ties in non religious interests as well ie water wars etc.

It’s easier when your foreign policy is defined by Islam and the Quran (that a lot of non-Shias claim that it’s just good old Persian nationalism and expansionism wrapped in religion). They stood their ground with principles.

The Kashmir issue makes me very angry. Pakistan should never have stepped the intensity of Indians getting BBQ in IOK. Pakistan pulled back and the intensity of attacks in Baluchistan and KPK went up exponentially.

The J33ts escalated knowing they were safe and sound in IOk. Bold enough to block Pakistans water and become more aggressively.

Make the MoFos burn!

 

[ety]

This means less Iranian oil for China, which is good, because China took advantage of Iran a bit by buying a ton of its sanctioned oil at unfair prices.

Chinese private oil companies are taking risks of being sanctioned by US of buying Iranian oil, so some discounts for the compensation. Thats normal business. No other countries except Chinese companies were willing to take the risks and US pressures to buy Iranian oil for years.

 

[Hassan Al-Somal]

Israel Is Threatening To Use Nukes Against The World

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[Homajon]

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[Hassan Al-Somal]

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[Meengla]

The memorandum of understanding with Iran which Mr Trump signed on Wednesday – in Versailles; perhaps not the best augury of lasting diplomatic achievement

LOL! Right!!
I think Macron was very excited by the global exposure and his staff was rushing to find the 'Palace Printer'!

 

[Immortals]

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[Meengla]

I keep going back to the F-15 shootdown in early April. Trump went completely insane and began issuing genocidal threats to Iran. The ceasefire that was arranged a few days later is still holding. This event was the true turning point in the war.
So what happened ? Well we are still trying to get the information, but the big picture is that Mr Trump had been sold this war as an easy victory by Netanyahu and despite all the setbacks, was still listening to him in early April. The final blunder by Trump was to green light an operation to directly attack the main Iranian nuke facility that was holding their enriched uranium, by using ground forces to collapse the entrance tunnels themselves and sealing off the whole facility for years, rather than just attacking the tunnel entrances using aircraft. This was an operation the Israelis had been encouraging the US to carry out since the Obama era, and had been described by Obama officials as "crazy".
The two below Substack articles have, IMO, the best information and analysis on why the F-15 pilot rescue was more likely a cover story for a failed Special Forces raid on Pickaxe Mountain

The Raid That Never Happened

The airstrip was picked, the CIA was running info campaigns, the aircrafts went down, the plan went down in flames like a Chinook

pawglvr69.substack.com

The Isfahan Debacle: Inside the Failed Raid That Shook Washington

The sequence of events that unfolded between April 2nd and April 5th, 2026, over central Iran represents one of the most complex and controversial military episodes in recent memory.

nitishastra.substack.com

It was after the failure of this Op that Trump seemed to finally realize how badly he had been misled by Netanyahu and the neocons into this war. They have been sidelined ever since.

Great post.
While these things maybe 'declassified' many years later, it is not a coincidence that the early April ceasefire happened shortly after the so-called Isfahan rescue operation. Plus, there were reports by even official US sources then (Pentagon?) that the Iranians managed to 'lock' on American jets. That left the carpet bombing only option but even that would carry risk of getting shot down. Even the F-35 was vulnerable to be shot down, as Pakistan's retired Airforce official Khalid Chisti detailed.

Iranians were not as defenseless as some Iranians here had been saying. Well, we know all the Iranian breast beaters here by now!

 

[krash]

It’s exactly a Muslim issue but also ties in non religious interests as well ie water wars etc.

How so? The results speak for themselves. Syria, Yemen, Libya, to name a few. I am open to changing my mind if you can provide empirical evidence.

It’s easier when your foreign policy is defined by Islam and the Quran (that a lot of non-Shias claim that it’s just good old Persian nationalism and expansionism wrapped in religion). They stood their ground with principles.

How is a foreign policy defined by the Quran? What are its exact tenets? How has Iran implemented them?

What other options did Iran have? Iraq, Syria, and Libya all stood their ground. Every country does when it comes down to existential threats. Iranian policies of the previous 4 decades led them there, which they also seem to have realized. I've discussed this at length here before.

The Kashmir issue makes me very angry. Pakistan should never have stepped the intensity of Indians getting BBQ in IOK. Pakistan pulled back and the intensity of attacks in Baluchistan and KPK went up exponentially.

The J33ts escalated knowing they were safe and sound in IOk. Bold enough to block Pakistans water and become more aggressively.

Make the MoFos burn!

I was pointing towards Iran's bonhomie with India despite its continued atrocities in Kashmir to contest the claim of "Shias have always come to the aid of their fellow Muslims". There's plenty of other examples throughout history.


People in groups overwhelmingly tend to their own group's interests. Any spillover is usually owing to chance alignment of interests. Always has been, always will be. The formation of nation-states has decoupled people's interests from every other grouping; political, religious, ethnic, and sectarian. They are now exclusively dictated through one's country. Not so much the emotions of Pakistanis, which are still governed by these archaic allegiances. So, with confused senses of belonging we still divide ourselves in different groups within the same nation.

 

[unconventional]

I respectfully disagree. Closing the Strait of Hormuz in itself is a quite useless and stupid practice if it doesn't affect oil prices. In fact, if anything, it is a bad political move in itself, unless it achieves Iran's strategic goal of coercion and deterrence through the risk of economic collapse. If it has lost its potency to achieve that goal, Iran has lost it as a card. I think that's pretty obvious.


Even this time, oil prices didn't pass $120 per barrel. We had Iranian members who predicted $200 per barrel or even higher than that, but it never materialized.
Adjusted for inflation, this wasn't even comparable to the aftermath of the US invasion of Iraq, as oil prices hit $188 per barrel in 2003, again adjusted for inflation of course.

And I don't know what you mean there is no alternative route. There are at least two such routes in operation by the Saudis and the Emiratis and after this, more will be built and enter operation in the next 5 years. Saudi Arabia pumped 7 million barrels of oil through their own pipeline even during this war.

If Iran cannot keep oil prices above $100 per barrel next time, the potency of this tool has been lost, and Iran will have one fewer card to use in future negotiations.


No, it actually refutes your point that because Iran didn't control the Strait of Hormuz before the war, it is of no value in the negotiations. That was your argument, and it clearly refutes that.


They didn't activate at all, not just "fully activate". They were bystanders in the war. Iran was being suffocated economically, which is why Iran is negotiating with the Americans for temporary relief as we speak.


Wrong. I never disputed that Israel and the US had burned through a huge number of interceptors. You're hallucinating like an LLM now lol

How long it takes is actually my point: not much because the US has access to formidable industrial capacity on its own and through trade with its allies or even its adversaries like China. We heard similar arguments after the 12-day war, but the US and Israel attacked Iran again at will barely 9 months after that.

How much it costs is of little relevance because Iran is already on the verge of complete economic collapse. The US military budget alone is nearly 10x of Iran's GDP while Iran's damages in the last 2 wars has been 10x more than both Israel and the US. I don't think bringing economics into this really paints a picture of triumph for Iran.


Iran didn't really fight a great asymmetric war and it proved it is incapable of doing so, contrary to what assumed for decades. If anything, Israel pulled asymmetric warfare tactics when it destroyed Iran's IADS in the early hours of the 12-day war by using cheap FPVs built inside Iran. That's real asymmetric warfare. Firing MRBMs by your armed forces from known locations is not asymmetric warfare.


Dude, you are now writing irrelevant stuff just for the sake of having written something. First of all, if you write the Gulf states instead of the Persian Gulf states, you are no longer the person I want to talk to. Either respect Iran's history, or kindly stop replying to me.

Secondly, Iran has lost north of $350 billion due to extensive damage to its civilian infrastructure. How much has the UAE lost, comparing its GDP to Iran? Not much. Therefore, it is not enough to remind them of anything. They know that a situation like this will eventually be in their favor because Iran is losing a lot more with a much smaller economy. It is not sustainable for Iran, not them.


Iran does not retain regional escalation options. Absolutely wrong. Iran reacts to US provocations and stops when the US decides. Iran is not in a position of action, but it is reactionary. Iran has proved beyond reasonable doubt that it does not control anything in the war. The Americans start it at will, and the Americans end it at will.

America has solved broader Iranian challenges already, and not by Trump. It was achieved in 2015 through the JCPOA after years of international sanctions. And now the US wants to have it all. If anybody thinks the Americans are looking for some sort of normalization with Iran, I can say nothing but feel sorry for them. And our negotiators are still there, negotiating with the Americans even though he threatens them and humiliates them publicly every now and then. This is not the posture of the side that has won the war.

I don’t agree with this.

On Hormuz, the fact that oil did not hit $200 a barrel does not mean the card has lost its potency. Even in this round, prices still went close to $120, and much of the reporting at the time was that this was being cushioned by reserves and short-term buffers. The real question is what happens if the closure/blockade is prolonged, not whether the market instantly goes into total panic in a short window.

Same with Hezbollah/Houthis. The fact that they were not activated in this phase does not make them useless in an escalated conflict. These groups are not activated mechanically every single time there is a clash. Hezbollah largely sat out the 12-day war, but engaged Israel later. Iran also indicated that Bab al-Mandab could be brought into play if Israel escalated further. So I don’t accept “they didn’t activate in this phase” as proof that Iran has no regional escalation options left.

Iran taking the bigger hit actually supports my point about why the deal can still skew in Iran’s favor. Of course Iran has a stronger incentive to take reconstruction money, sanctions relief and reintegration after suffering heavier economic and infrastructure damage. But that is not the same thing as saying the bargain favors the US. The real question is what Iran is giving up in return. If Iran absorbs the heavier damage, then secures reconstruction and global reintegration, while still not surrendering the core pillars the US/Israel actually wanted to neutralize — its broader missile deterrent, regional leverage, and escalation capacity — then the heavier damage does not prove a US win at all. It simply explains why Iran would take a deal that still ends up being strategically favorable to it relative to the alternatives.

 

[unconventional]

@ShapurII

You are completely wrong on the replenishment point. The question is not whether the US has a larger economy than Iran. The question is whether the US/Israel can replenish expensive missile interceptors faster and more sustainably than Iran can replenish drones and ballistic missiles.

Missile interceptors take a long time and huge amounts of money to bring into operation. Only a relatively limited number can be produced and fielded each year. Iran’s drones, by contrast, are cheap and quick to produce, and Iran’s ballistic missile program has been active since at least the 1990s. That means Iran has far greater depth in ballistic missile inventory than Israel has in interceptors, and the turnaround time for replenishing offensive systems is much faster than replenishing high-end defensive systems.

This is why the interceptor depletion point matters so much. OSINT assessments indicated that US and Israeli interceptor stocks had reached critically low levels around the time of the ceasefire, while Iran still retained the majority of its ballistic missile reserves. So it is not enough to say “the US can ramp up production.” That completely misses the cost, time, and attrition asymmetry at the heart of this conflict.

 

[AZ_HighCountry]

@ShapurII

You are completely wrong on the replenishment point. The question is not whether the US has a larger economy than Iran. The question is whether the US/Israel can replenish expensive missile interceptors faster and more sustainably than Iran can replenish drones and ballistic missiles.

Missile interceptors take a long time and huge amounts of money to bring into operation. Only a relatively limited number can be produced and fielded each year. Iran’s drones, by contrast, are cheap and quick to produce, and Iran’s ballistic missile program has been active since at least the 1990s. That means Iran has far greater depth in ballistic missile inventory than Israel has in interceptors, and the turnaround time for replenishing offensive systems is much faster than replenishing high-end defensive systems.

This is why the interceptor depletion point matters so much. OSINT assessments indicated that US and Israeli interceptor stocks had reached critically low levels around the time of the ceasefire, while Iran still retained the majority of its ballistic missile reserves. So it is not enough to say “the US can ramp up production.” That completely misses the cost, time, and attrition asymmetry at the heart of this conflict.

According to Raptor's latest post, THAAD production slated to quadruple. That's nice. There's also that little matter of potential supply chain interruptions that could impact delivery.

The US seriously lacks a cheap solution to a cheap but very plentiful problem.